Another saint of remarkable powers was Tederos (St. Theodore). He resided at the hamlet near Rohabaita which now bears his name. Here, “on the face of the rock is the little hole wherein he lived; it is barely high enough for a person to squat in; and the marks worn in the stone by the crown of his head, the soles of his feet, and his elbows are still shown. His miracles were many. Among others, a leopard ate up his son, the saint, returning home, missed him, and set out in search of him. When in the forest he called aloud to him three times, and at the third time the leopard appeared: on seeing him, the saint guessed how the matter stood with the unfortunate youth; but, nothing discouraged, he coolly ordered the beast to return him safe and sound. Now this was rather difficult, as the leopard had, no doubt, half digested him; nevertheless, so great was the saint’s power that the boy left the leopard’s maw none the worse, perhaps rather the better, for having been dismembered and reconstructed. Being asked where a church should be built, the saint threw his staff, desiring the inquirers to build where they found the staff had fallen. After many days it was found several miles off in Serawi, on the other side of the valley, exactly on the spot where now stands the church of Debra Mariam.
“Many other wonderful stories were told me of his feats, but I have forgotten them. The most useful act attributed to him was that he caused the rock below him to become hollow, in order to receive the rain-water. The hollow still exists, though I should strongly suspect it to be of Nature’s construction; or, if the saint had a hand in its design, he must have been a clumsy fellow, for with half the labour he might have made a place capable of containing twice the quantity of water.”[138]
Parkyns was not sure of the parentage of the youth who was disgorged by the leopard. “I hope I am right in giving St. Theodore a son,” he wrote. “I don’t know whether his being a father would preclude his being a saint: however, it was a youth nearly related to him, if I remember the story right.”
Some chroniclers “pretend that St. Matthew and St. Bartholomew actually visited the country. Some even go so far as to assert that the Virgin Mary herself, with the child Jesus, came into Abyssinia when she fled to Egypt, and show a place in a high mountain which is called her throne or seat.”[139] Bruce wrote that “in the Synaxar, or history of their saints, one is said to have thrown the devil over a high mountain; another persuaded him to live as a monk for forty years; another had a holy longing for partridges, upon which a brace perched on his plate—martyrs ready roasted.”[140]
“In many cases,” Parkyns wrote, “the patron saint is preferred to the Almighty; and a man who would not hesitate to invoke the name of his Maker in witness to a falsehood would have difficulty in disguising his perjury if he were appealed to in the name of St. Michael or St. George. It is also a well-known fact, and most common of occurrence, that a favour besought in the name of God would often be refused, while, if the request were immediately after repeated in the name of the Virgin or of some favourite saint, it would probably be granted. This may be observed in the appeal of the common street beggar in Tigre, whose ordinary cry is, ‘Silla Izgyheyr! Silla Medhainy Allam!’ (For the sake of God! For the sake of the Saviour!)—while, if he be very importunate, he will change his usual whining tone, and add with persuasive emphasis, ‘Silla Mariam! Silla Abouna Tekla Haimanout!’” (For the sake of Mary! For the sake of Tekla Haimanout!)
It has already been said that Tekla Haimanot and other early celebrities of the Church were monks. Monasteries are plentiful in the land, and there are also hermits who practise asceticism in desolate and lonely places. Mr. Herbert Vivian gained admission to a conventual house, and has given a lively description of it.[141] The sanctity of the Abyssinian monk or anchorite is in proportion to his prowess in mortifying the flesh, and this class of men still retains much religious prestige and influence in the land. But probably the pristine rigour of their life has been much relaxed, and the remarks of Major Cornwallis Harris are applicable at the present time.
“Education was in former days to be obtained alone from the inmate of the monastic abode, and a life of scanty food, austerity, and severe fasting was embraced only by the more enthusiastic. But the skin-cloak and the dirty headdress now envelope the listless monk, who, satisfied with a dreamy and indolent existence, basks during the day on the grassy banks of the sparkling rivulet, and prefers a bare sufficiency of coarse fare to the sweeter morsel earned by the sweat of the brow.”[142]
The same writer’s account of the consecration of a friar is interesting. “The monk is admitted to the order of his choice by any officiating priest. A prayer is repeated, the skull-cap blessed with the sign of the cross, and the ceremony is complete. But a more imposing rite attends the oath of celibacy before the Abouna. The clergy assemble in numbers, and fires are lighted around the person of the candidate. His loins are bound about with the leathern girdle of Saint John, and the prayer and the requiem for the dead rise pealing from the circle. The glaswa—a narrow strip of black cloth adorned with coloured crosses—is then placed on the shaven crown, and shrouded from view by the enveloping shawl; and the archbishop, clad in his robes of state, having repeated the concluding prayer and blessing, signs with his own hand the emblem of faith over the various parts of the body.”[143]
Consul Plowden wrote in a somewhat censorious mood of the Abyssinian regulars. “Monasteries are not wanting to complete the resemblance to the Roman Catholic Church and to the Middle Ages, where every immorality is practised; nor solitary hermits, who dwell in gloomy forests, feeding on roots, and exposed to ferocious animals, and who are sometimes as sincere as they are useless.” He added, “nunneries alone are absent from the picture; though vows of celibacy are sometimes taken, if rarely kept save at an advanced age.”
With regard to religious sisterhoods he was in error. Bruce wrote that, “all women who choose to renounce acquaintance with men are allowed to turn priests, they then wear a skull-cap, like the men; and these priests, male and female, all pretend to possess charms of a nature both offensive and defensive, which are most generally believed in.”[144] The same writer asserted that he and his party on one occasion, after passing the River Taccazze, “at last reached a plain filled with flowering shrubs, roses, jessamines, etc., and animated by a number of people passing to and fro. Several of these were monks and nuns from Waldubba, in pairs, two and two together. The women, who are both young and stout, were carrying large burdens of provisions on their shoulders, which showed that they did not entirely subsist upon the herbs of Waldubba. The monks, their compagnons de voyage, had sallow faces, yellow cowls, and yellow gowns.”[145]